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Employment Conditions in the Guyana Sugar Industry  

Sep 10, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

There is quite an exhaustive historical summary of the sugar industry and its prospects in SN of Sunday, September 04, informed substantively by personal experience.

Selectively, in the process, blame is put on one administration for the depletion of sugar production in Guyana. Very briefly however, it may not be totally irrelevant to recite the following pace of closures of sugar estates:

1829 – 238 estates

1890 – 138

1900 – 80

1922 – 39

1967 – 18

1976 – 11, then 1978 – the year of nationalisation – 10

1986 – Leonora was closed, followed by Diamond in 1987

LBI/Ogle was absorbed into East Demerara Estate not long after the collapse of Skeldon Estate Factory in 2010 an event that is persistently overlooked, even though it had progressively negative effects on the financial viability of the industry.

In the meantime, there is observed very cautious reservations about the negative impact of the industrial relations activity on sugar production over the years. There was a time when it was quite normal for the industry to publish tables declaring: a) duration of each strike, b) man-days lost, c) wages lost. Indeed the records would show that the Guyana sugar industry had the most disruptive industrial relations environment throughout the West Indies.

Admittedly workers’ wages and salaries were contained for an unreasonably extended period. The same was applicable to managerial staff, for it was the current administration who contracted in 2014 a well respected international team of consultants (Hays) to recommend an improved salary structure for senior and junior monthly staff. Since its implementation then however, it is true that no one, along with unionized employees, benefitted from any salary/wage increases up to the closure of the last four estates – realistically because of the lack of funds, as was continually countered to GAWU’s reasonable demands for increases.

On the other hand, even GAWU would admit to other beneficial employment conditions, some of which they would have negotiated over time. But the records would show that the sugar industry’s employment conditions can barely be matched locally. These include the following:

–              Free medical benefits for employee, spouse and unemployed children under the age of 18

–              Contributory Hospitalisation and Maternity Scheme

–              National Insurance Scheme

–              Other Annual Leave, Sick Leave conditions

–              Occupational Health & Safety Provisions

–              Holiday-with-Pay

–              Employee Scholarships to: University of Guyana and Guyana School of Agriculture

–              Gratuity/Pension as eligible

The attached Vacancy Notice confirms some of the above.

Regards,

E.B. John

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